Punch the keys

Have you noticed how the new generation is able to pick up the available technology like they were born with the know how? I have always wondered at my daughter being able to deftly weld the mouse, while I remember struggling to get the co-ordination going when I started off. I remember my father's comments on the same topic when I was a kid. I had heard him saying that he was struck by how I was so quickly able to pick up the operations of the TV, VCR or the lift, whereas he has some reservations. He has all but given up operating the mobile and constantly asks my mom to handle the mobile :) Am I getting old? Or is it that now that I am mature I hesitate thinking that I may damage the costly stuff? Whatever it may be, it is a wonder how quickly and naturally my daughter, her cousins and their generation has absorbed the usage of all the technology around them. Be it computers, mobiles, gaming console any thing at all. A few minutes tinkering with the stuff and they are ex...

Yesterday I was trying out Google wave after letting it sit idle for some time and tried to blog from the wave interface. If you would have seen the wave demo video, it shows a cool integration of the wave with the blog. The product managers who were demoing the product coolly added some photos into the wave the created added a few friends from their contacts and viola it was shared with those friends. Continuing the demo, the wanted to publish the content onto a blog and just added the appropriate robot onto the screen and again Viola! the content got published to the blog. So I too did the same, but no magic happened for me. The wave is still there on my interface.. have a look here.... Expecting the content to publish, I of course, wrote accordingly. So would this be a blog in a blog??!! Some of the other stuff on the google wave is simply amazing. But it will need more time and lot more members to make it a success.

WOW! 2 years have flown past so very quickly! And I so very much, miss not being there. My bro-in-laws’, two for them,  would be at arafa today God willing. I am very happy for them. It had been one of the greatest moments of my life to have been on this journey. Hope to go back sometime again God willing. Some of the photos from the last trip is shared here. Hajj Trip dec 2007

A few weeks prior to june 2008, there was a lot of discussion and support gathering for the attempt at a world record. The record was for a category that did not exist till then. "largest number of software downloads in 24 hours". That was the category that Mozilla was trying to aim and create with the Guinness folks. June 17, 2008 was set as the download day and all the members associated with mozilla, open source, etc started to raise the awareness with the Spread Firefox  campaign. There were a total of 489,596 that were recorded that day from India . I remember going around office and reminding my friends to start of the downloads. On July 2nd, we got the confirmation  that the Guinness World Record had been official. A total of 8,002,530 people downloaded firefox3 in 24 hours. As an appreciation, mozilla let us have a virtual certificate :). All who had pre-registered were sent a mail. Only the link was sent and we had to enter the name online to generate the ...

All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited. ...... They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority. Read more here ... State to 'spy' on every phone call, email and web search This is indeed going to be interesting to see how this item works out. I had thought that they already had mechanisms like this in place. If not completely like the news details, at least there are enough measures to find out enough about someone's criminal activity. Having systems like the one described is only going to be used to target the general public than the minority who indulge in unscrupulous activity.

Isn't it cool that you can now use your facebook or google id on most sites to authenticate yourself. I remember the earlier days when one had to create a user account in the specific site to download or even write comments. These days there are many authentication services available and most sites don't need their own. This is wonderful :) . Not only saves on remembering all those username/password, but also does help in maintaining an identity. I had earlier scribbled about it here in part.. Social Networking- what a vast space! , but the more I use it, more I like the concept. I just wish they don't go overboard with all of them trying to create a "unique" "single" authentication mechanism. My 2cents for the guys, it wouldn't be so unique or single if all of you create one each, would it? Standardize please!

I was a late reader in our family. I started to read books when I was in seventh standard. My sisters, both avid readers, started off when they were in third or fourth. Because of their enthusiasm in reading, I had quite a collection of comics and books at home by the time I had my senses. The love for books is a common factor in our family. I cannot remember a time where books were not around in my home. We used to have all sorts of discussions on books. My ma and pa always encouraged us in this, yet I was pretty late. I used to love the books with pictures when I was little. I would turn the pages of these comics and come up with my own stories, ignoring the print completely. This was more to do with my difficulty in reading. I had trouble reading words and sentences. I remember my classmates reading very fluently where as I could only stammer through the lines. Was I put off? Nope. I was in a world of my own and these things didn't bother me at all. But by the time I was in ...

I have been trying to get a few snaps of my kids together. The problem is to get them in front of the camera. They want to be behind it! Every shot I take, they are on their toes trying to get to me to see how the photo came out. :) I just cannot get them to sit and pose. It was not like this with my elder one. A couple of years back, she would pose for the photos and would be really interested to be clicked. She was not concious of the camera and so taking the photos and videos were very easy compared to now. I like to take snaps and keep them. Not as to display, but it feels nice to take these snaps out and view them. It feels very nice to see the old snaps, of my parents and grand parents. I hope some day others will look at these snaps and enjoy them. Thats where I appreciate the digital world. So easy to store and share. It seems like so many years ago and yet just like yesterday. I am sure my parents would feel that same about me and my siblings. In fact, I am sure I have h...